St. George Regional opens local adolescent day-treatment program to keep teens in community
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Summary
St. George Regional Health described a new partial-hospitalization/day-treatment program for adolescents that aims to provide intensive therapy while allowing young patients to return home evenings and weekends, reducing out-of-area hospitalizations.
St. George Regional Health on Wednesday described a newly licensed adolescent partial-hospitalization program designed to offer intensive, evidence-based mental health treatment while allowing teens to return to their families each evening.
The Greater Washington City-area program, presenters said, operates like a “school day” Monday through Thursday with group- and individual-therapy sessions, family therapy and on-site nursing and psychiatric support. “We offer the same level of services as if an adolescent was going to stay in a hospital,” said Logan Gothrow, a St. George Regional Health representative, “except we make sure adolescents can be safe going home in the evenings and on the weekends.”
Why it matters: Until now, most inpatient or intensive adolescent psychiatric services in the region required sending young people to Salt Lake City or other distant facilities, a disruption families and clinicians said can worsen stress and hamper follow-up. The day-treatment model is intended to be a bridge between inpatient hospitalization and standard outpatient therapy, providing daily skills training and “warm handoffs” to local outpatient providers.
Program details and staffing St. George Regional’s program, licensed in February and operating for roughly six weeks at the time of the council meeting, offers full-day programming roughly 8:45 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on most weekdays and shorter hours on Fridays. Becca Pace, identified as a behavioral-health specialist on staff, said the program includes two therapists who run skills groups, weekly individual therapist sessions and weekly family sessions. A nurse is on site and rotating St. George Regional psychiatrists meet with each child at admission and discharge when medication management is needed.
“We have a really high staff-to-adolescent ratio so we can individualize care,” Pace said. Therapy modalities include dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), organizers said, adapted into a 15-day rotating curriculum so new patients can enter at any time and still receive the full curriculum.
Referral and intake Presenters said referrals typically come from emergency-room crisis evaluations, mobile response teams and school counselors. The program offers a free clinical intake assessment and does not require payment or insurance details before determining whether the program is appropriate. Gothrow and Pace said St. George Regional accepts major insurances and that the hospital foundation is working on scholarship support for families in need.
Council response and location Council members welcomed the program as a community resource. “This is a big deal. It’s really a good step forward for our area,” one councilor said during the meeting. Presenters said the program operates out of a renovated former Jubilee home on 400 East, 500 South, near the former hospital site; they described the facility as a home-like setting rather than a sterile inpatient unit.
What’s next St. George Regional leaders said public outreach would continue so families, school counselors and clinicians know the service exists. The presenters said they will coordinate with local schools and the emergency department to streamline referrals and post-discharge continuity of care.
Evidence from meeting transcript Presenters and staff answered council questions during the workshop portion of the April 9 meeting. Excerpts of the presentation and Q&A were recorded in the council transcript.
